When I think about poetry, I think of nursery rhymes and Shakespeare sonnets; something that contains half-baked moralities or frolics about romantically. Distant and highbrow. I was never one to think deeply about most poems. However, at the turn of the 20th century during the start of the Modernist era of literature, I saw poetry not as it was, but what it was trying to be. In this current era, where our conversations about our culture and our world are what most would consider much more technical, I believe it is a mistake to not consider that the arguments made by Modernist poets were also deep and full of ideas about what it meant define morality and reality. Modernism is an era of intrigue within the art world, especially within poetry, set after the Victorians until roughly after World War 1. During this turn of the century, "lofty" ideas about things such as accessibility and a profound urge to be understood by all began to emerge, along with the more "relatable" concept of finding a deeper meaning in the fewest of words. The famous saying "a picture speaks a thousand words" is something that began to rise within the Modernist era in this poetry. The idea that items such as the red wheel barrow in William Carlos Williams's poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" and etcetera in e. e. cummings's "my sweet old etcetera" are not as simple as they appear. The first time you read them, they are "too short" or perhaps mistaken for first drafts. But by the time you reread and reread again the same poem, an image of what the author is trying to convey is not as emotionally stunted as it first appears, but instead sheds light on Ezra Pounds's idea to "make [something] new." Others may perhaps criticize these Modernist poets as reinventing the wheel, but I consider these poems to be a reflection of the past. Wallace Stevens, a poet who had the privilege of showing his artistic side conjoined with (or perhaps in spite of) his career as a lawyer, said in his poem "Of Modern Poetry" that a poem was "of the act of the mind." Poetry was to be simple, to "learn the speech of the place." Art, which had for so long been something just out of reach to the masses, was now being brought to the middle class - understood even to those who had never read poetry before. Marianne Moore, a female Modernist poet, argues that poetry could still be deep and beautiful whilst also being digestible to the masses. As said in Moore's poem "Poetry," poems are to be "above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them"). There are exceptions, of course, to the idea of Modernist poetry being relatable. In TS Eliot's famous poem "The Wasteland," Eliot plays around with the idea of a poem being both of simple speech and of complicated word choice and formatting. Modernist poetry is not shy about conveying the idiocy of a woman's "roles" in our patriarchal society (as expressed by Mina Loy and Edna St. Vincent Millay), nor of the horrors of the First World War (Eliot's "Wasteland"). One of the most, and in my opinion, interesting things about Modernist poetry, is its reaction to rigid "rules" or expectations about poetry, and of confronting the upper class's social standards of art itself. Modernist poetry, in my opinion, was attempting to be this effervescent and vivid creature that could morph into some new, deeper thing each time you read it. These poems are something that I believe are "#Relatable" to today's readers, and is something that grows and changes as each generation changes and moves on from past generations. This great, big push by these poets was one that changed my opinion on poetry, and is something that can certainly hop around in my imaginary gardens.
2 Comments
I like that you tackle the starts of Modernist poetry as a whole, instead of just focusing on one poem. I agree with you that Modernist poems tend to be more relatable than poems like Shakespeare's can. The poems we've read have tackled more than just frilly morals and love stories, and I think you've portrayed that well.
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Katie
9/15/2019 04:07:19 pm
I love how you mentioned the saying "a picture speaks a thousand words." It's kind of funny how so many of these modernist poems use very few words and cut straight to the point, yet they have thousands of interpretations. Maybe that was the authors were trying to accomplish.
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